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LXer Weekly Roundup for 29-Aug-2010

The big stories this week include still more fallout from the Oracle-Google lawsuit, 10 differences between Linux and BSD, the joys of determining Linux market share, Microsoft says they love Open Source..again, and last but not least Paul Allen decides to sue just about everybody for patent infringement. Enjoy!

10 differences between Linux and BSD: How often do you hear people lumping together Linux and any of the BSDs? I've done it on occasion, and I hear it all the time. Of course, there are plenty of similarities between Linux and BSD: They are both based on UNIX. For the most part, both systems are developed by noncommercial organizations. And I must say that both the Linux and BSD variants have one common goal--to create the most useful, reliable operating system available. Still, there are significant differences as well. And when people overlook them, the whole BSD community shivers with anger. So I thought I would do my best to help my BSD brethren out and explain some of the ways Linux differs from BSD.

Oracle forms new 'axis of evil' against open source, claims Adobe: Oracle has replaced Microsoft as the FOSS community’s number one enemy, according to Adobe System’s open source boss. David McAllister, the Flash and Photoshop maker’s open source and standards director, said in a blog post yesterday that the implosion of the OpenSolaris Governing Board highlighted how “the axis of evil has shifted south about 850 miles or so”.

Linux Market Share: In the course of a normal work day I take several little breaks to check the news. On my list of news sites are Slashdot, Linux Journal, and Linux Today. Frequently I see something that gives me an idea for an article. Sometimes I even find an article on a topic that I was planning to write about myself. Such was the case today when I came across this well-written piece from the Royal Pingdom Blog referenced on Linux Today. It’s about the failure of desktop Linux to break the 1% market share barrier, and I confess that it left me a little depressed. But I decided to add my two cents on the subject anyhow.

Microsoft: 'We love open source': Everyone in the Linux world remembers Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's famous comment that Linux is a "cancer" that threatened Microsoft's intellectual property. Ballmer is still CEO of Microsoft, but that comment occurred in 2001, a lifetime ago in the technology market. While Microsoft hasn't formally rescinded its declaration that Linux violates its patents, at least one Microsoft executive admits that the company’s earlier battle stance was a mistake. Microsoft wants the world to understand, whatever its issues with Linux, it no longer has any gripe toward open source.

Apple's Enhanced OpenGL Stack Versus Linux: While our primary focus at Phoronix is on providing Linux benchmarks, we do enjoy trying out and benchmarking other operating systems like FreeBSD, Solaris, and Mac OS X. When Apple originally launched Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" we were the first to provide detailed Mac OS X 10.6 benchmarks compared to Mac OS X 10.5 and also how Apple's new operating system at the time compared to Linux. We have continued to monitor the performance of Snow Leopard and found that some point releases had introduced some regressions and we have compared the performance of Mac OS X 10.6 to Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

Microsoft Open Source Strategy is Upside Down.: Last April (April-29-2010) there was a local event in Ecuador organized by AESoft, the Ecuadorian Software association. This event was names “Integrated Technologies” and was sponsored by Microsoft, CodePlex, Port25 and The Apache Foundation. On this conference Microsoft sent a message saying that they are Open Source friendly and they support Open Source development. I saw this even as a Microsoft response of the growing “Free Software” (as in Freedom) movement here in Ecuador. So Microsoft tried to convince the audience that they care about Open Source and there are a lot of OSS software they promote.

Making Ubuntu look like Windows 7: Although it won’t help Linux run Windows-specific software applications, this easy hack produces an Ubuntu desktop that looks and feels a lot like Windows 7. It’s particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from the web.

Ubuntu One taking care of Windows users ... not so much users of other Linux distributions: A look at the roadmap for Ubuntu One reveals the following feature planned for Maverick — Windows file sync: Addresses the needs of the many Ubuntu users who operate in a mixed platform environment of Ubuntu + Windows ... Will support syncing files between Windows desktops and your Ubuntu One personal cloud ... I wonder, what about a free, open-source Ubuntu One client that could be used in any Linux distribution?

GCC - 'We make free software affordable': GCC and GNU Emacs are the two facets of the GNU operating system that have probably done more than any other to take GNU and free software from idealistic concept to a utilitarian reality. Having previously looked at GNU Emacs and the Hurd, Richard Hillesley looks at the history and progress of GCC.